on the 8 of December, a Wordsong concert in Brussels at Palais des Beaux Arts, with me and Vitor Rua as guest musicians. Unfortunately, not much people in the audience... On the other hand, on the 21st of December at the main auditorium of Belém Cultural Center in Lisbon, an enthusiastic audience almost filled this big concert hall for a great concert of Wordsong with not only me and Vitor Rua as guest musicians but also Lula Pena, Tó Trips, Flak, Gui and Tom Chant. Great night!
During 3 weeks, artists from different fields, theorists and programers have been working in Lisbon at the old building which will be the new space of Alkantara: cláudia jardim (portugal), pedro penim (portugal), nuno rebelo (portugal), gustavo ciríaco (brazil), tarek atoui (lebanon), carlos pez (spain/belgium), sasa asentic (serbia), federica porello (italy), estela lloves (spain), marc neelen (holand), ana dzokic (serbia/holand), bojana cvejic (serbia/belgium), mark deputter (belgium/portugal), catarina saraiva (portugal), raquel fernandes (portugal).
Check the blog of the project "it will be what we make it" at http://itwillbewhatwemakeit.wordpress.com for detailed info. The whole thing turned out to be focused around the space itself, the history of Alkantara and possible futures for it. There was a wide range of programming, from cinema showings to performances, from cooking to party, from video instalations to concerts, from debates to conferences, etc. I'll focus here on what i've done during this time.
On Friday 16 November I proposed the screening of Edgar Pêra's film "Evazion LX94", featuring Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker and Terence Mckenna, one of my favorite films ever.
I participated twice in the kitchen activities, together with Carlos Pez. First, on Friday 23 of November, we cooked for 30 people: us + our guests, invited to debate possible futures for Alkantara and this space.
The second occasion was Saturday 24 of November. The public was supposed to bring any kind of ingredients and we cooked non-stop since 19h30m to 23h, having presented a wide variety of delicious and spontaneous recipes (with the help of the volunteer girls from Alkantara who choped a lot of onion and also cooked some goodies).
This night was called "goodnight and good luck" and featured 2 performances by Sasa Asentic, a conference on alternative architecture by Marc Neelen and Anna Dzokic and a duo concert by myself (on electric guitar) and Tarek Atoui (on electronics).
On wednsday 28 of November, Federica Porello organized a Jam session with students from a few dance and performing arts schools in Lisbon. I invited Ricardo Freitas (bass guitar) and Miguel Cabral (homemade percussions) to join Tarek and myself on the musical side of the Jam. “The Future is Uncertain” evening, on Friday 30 of November, presented three scenarios for possible futures of Alkantara. Scenario 1: venue - guide tour through Alkantara’s building in 2019, by Sasa Asentic and Pedro Penim. Scenario 2: project based organisation - with 7 timeframes from 2007 until 2019, by Bojana Cvejic and Gustavo Ciriaco. Scenario 3: platform for thinking - the press conference on 30 November 2019, the day when the building has been acquired from the city, by Ana Dzokic and Claudia Jardim. Then there was a documentary by Bojana Cvejic, Claudia Jardim and Federica Porello about Alkantara and Dancas na cidade; and a photographic research on more then 70 spaces in Lisbon used by Alkantara from 1993-2007, by Ana Dzokic, Marc Neelen and Pedro Penim.
After all this, i did a very short audio visual concert (about 5 minutes!) called "It will be a question of...". Using a piezzo microphone on a transparency projector, my hands and the objects that i was using to produce sound (and of course visuals) were projected on a wall. The end of it left a projection with question marks made with screws.
On this night there were also several video instalations, one of which, "It could have been tomorrow" by Carlos Pez, had my music as soundtrack. He used an electronic piece called "jumping birds", one of the "cristalized improvisations" that i composed back in 1990!
The last night, Saturday 1 of December, was called "Performing the space" and featured a very nice performance with the same name by Sasa Asentic and Gustavo Ciriaco, with the participation of Federica Porello, involving the audience and the space. There was also a great energetic and exciting solo concert by Tarek, and another solo concert by myself.
In this concert, also called "performing the space", i used objects that i found in the space and the space itself in order to produce sound. This was the core of my research during this period of 3 weeks, not only as performance material but also for video: i videotaped these and prepared some software in order to be able to play live music with video projections of the sound sources. This way, my concert had an acoustic first part (me playing the objects) and a video second part (me playing the clips of the ojects).
This night i put up again "It will be a question of...". Since the night before it didn't become interactive (people from the public using it to transform the images) cause it was the last thing presented, it was great to see people using it all the time during this second night. Once in a while, i would come back to it and redo some question marks.
João Martins, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Miguel Cabral, Ricardo Freitas, Emídio Buchinho, Nuno Rebelo
At Beaux Arts Horta Hall in Brussels, improvisations of music & dance. Granular is an association for the development of new music in Portugal, PARTS is one of the most famous dance schools in Europe. In this event, students from PARTS under the direction of David Zambrano presented 4 improvisation performances together with an ensemble of musicians from Granular (João Martins - sax and objects; Ulrich Mitzlaff - cello; Miguel Cabral - homemade percussions & electronics; Ricardo Freitas - acoustic bass; Emídio Buchinho - acoustic guitar; and myself on electric guitar and objects). Since David Zambrano asked specifically for music with grooves, we came with 4 pre-recorded sequences on computer that we could use anytime during the impros. This, together with my own gestures directing the musicians ensemble, provided a very lively music which everybody apreciated. We did well, very well indeed! And so did the dancers: nicholas tiishang aphane, salka ardal rosengren, jos baker, marcus baldemar, gilad ben ari, aron blom, fanny broyaux, young-seung choi, soo-jin chun, ludvig daae, stanislav dobak, frédérique dom, mikko hyvönen, anneleen keppens, thibault lac, cecilia lisa eliceche, dawid lorenc, steven michel, csaba molnar, sarah beth percival, eleni pierides, jonathan pranlas, guo rui, peter Þavel, maria silva, fanny skura, noé soulier, artemis stavridi artemis, marco torrice, anaïs van eycken, petra van gompel, stav yeini, elisa yvelin and of course David Zambrano.
Mark was in Lisbon from the 18 to 28 of October. He stayed at my place and during this time we started working on a new creation: "Lulu" (Frank Wedekind's play adapted by Alban Berg for his opera, or the silent movie from Pabst, staring Louise Brooks). This musical choreography of Mark Tompkins will be premiered in the Fall of 2008 by his company I.D.A., with Mark singing live the different male characters. For the moment he's still searching the ideal actress / singer for the role of Lulu. I'll be doing the music and working on the songs together with Mark. During his staying in Lisbon we worked on 3 songs ("have you ever loved", "if not you" and "little lulu") and we are more than happy with the results. Click here to listen to a demo of one of the songs: have u ever loved in your life (Lulu)
Apart from this homework, we had some rehearsals with our band "Mark Lewis & The Standards" and we did 2 concerts in Lisbon: on the 24 October at Musicbox and on the 27 at Fábrica do Braço de Prata. Both were great gigs; personally, i prefered the warm athmosphere of the second one.
Fábrica do Braço de Prata is a great new venue in Lisbon: a huge building with 14 rooms for exihibitions, instalations, concerts, bookstore, bar & restaurant and... free parking place!!! On the 19th of October i played a free improv gig with Zé Bruno Parrinha (clarinet), Rodrigo Pinheiro (grand piano), Miguel Leiria Pereira(doublebass)& myself (electric guitar). Since Miguel is mostly a classic music doublebass player, the overall impro often took tonal directions, sometimes almost romantic, which in a way were a chalenge for the other musicians but at the same time provided a very pleasant athmosphere that the audience much apreciated.
Another gig of the duo "Lost & Found" in the context of Tensdansa Festival in Terrassa (near Barcelona). This duo with Mark Lewis Tompkins and myself started in June 2006. It’s a kind of pocket version of "Mark Lewis & The Standards". We play some of the songs of the Standards with different arrangements and we use videos that I did both as visual background and soundtrack. But we also did some original songs and later the Standards started to play these too. So it works both ways. So far, Lost & Found performed in Vienna, Ljubljana (Slovenia), Berlin, Girona (Spain), Paris and now in Terrassa (Spain). In April 2008 we will play in Toulouse (France).
After the gig in Terrassa I spend some very nice days in Barcelona with my wife Cathrin. We stayed at the flat of my friend Joan Saura. This charming flat at Carrer de la Plata, right in front of the port of Barcelona, was actually the first studio of Pablo Picasso in Barcelona!
Mark Tompkins is coming to Portugal this week to start working with me on his new creation - "Lulu" - for his dance company IDA. Taking this oportunity, we'll do a gig of Mark Lewis & The Standards on the 24th of October at Musicbox, Lisbon.
VGO (variable Geometry Orchestra) is the largest improvisation ensemble in Portugal. Directed by Ernesto Rodrigues, it has been performing concerts with a line-up reaching sometimes 40 musicians! I played recently in the concerts at Fábrica do Braço de Prata in Lisbon (15 September) and Casa da Musica in Porto (12 October). Next saturday (20 October) one more gig at ZDB gallery, Lisbon.
A triple-CD of VGO ("Stills") has been recently released by Creative Sources.
Guitar player, sound explorer, improviser, composer, doing things with video too.
Check my page at myspace or my page at youtube for more info about myself, more music and more videos.
25 and 26 November- "Blackout" - performance of João Samões with live sound processing by Nuno Rebelo @ Comtemprary Arts Center, Pontevedra, Spain
1 to 7 December - Nuno Rebelo will be teaching an experimental guitar workshop at Madeiradig Festival in Madeira Island. Duo concert with Vitor Joaquim on the 7th December in the same festival
13 December - solo performance "Performing the space" by Nuno Rebelo, @ Convento de S. Francisco, Montemor-o-novo
19 December - instalation / concert "Self Portrait with feet and head" by Nuno Rebelo @ NoExtremo festival, Almada
16 January 2009 - impro concert: Nuno Rebelo + DjOlive at "Is this jazz?" festival at Culturgest, Lisbon
“The Future is Uncertain” evening, on Friday 30 of November, presented three scenarios for possible futures of Alkantara. Scenario 1: venue - guide tour through Alkantara’s building in 2019, by Sasa Asentic and Pedro Penim. Scenario 2: project based organisation - with 7 timeframes from 2007 until 2019, by Bojana Cvejic and Gustavo Ciriaco. Scenario 3: platform for thinking - the press conference on 30 November 2019, the day when the building has been acquired from the city, by Ana Dzokic and Claudia Jardim. Then there was a documentary by Bojana Cvejic, Claudia Jardim and Federica Porello about Alkantara and Dancas na cidade; and a photographic research on more then 70 spaces in Lisbon used by Alkantara from 1993-2007, by Ana Dzokic, Marc Neelen and Pedro Penim.
On this night there were also several video instalations, one of which, "It could have been tomorrow" by Carlos Pez, had my music as soundtrack. He used an electronic piece called "jumping birds", one of the "cristalized improvisations" that i composed back in 1990!
João Martins, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Miguel Cabral, Ricardo Freitas, Emídio Buchinho, Nuno Rebelo.jpg)
photo: Vera Marmelo
